Manufacturers of hand held devices, including those of mobile communication devices, are increasingly adding functionality to their devices. For example, many mobile communication devices shipped today include cameras. As advancements are being made in a variety of fields of technology, including in image capturing devices, new and improved features are steadily being incorporated into cameras of mobile communication devices. Users may capture still images and video on their mobile communication devices and transmit those files to recipient devices.
While there is a trend toward the inclusion of more features and improvements for current features, there is also a trend toward smaller mobile communication devices. Fewer and/or smaller hardware components are therefore desirable when adding new features and making improvements to the current features in the smaller devices. Fewer hardware components may also provide a cost benefit to the manufacturer and the consumer.
An improvement in a camera device could be to improve the speed of an auto-focus function. In cameras, the auto-focus function uses its image capturing functions in many or all positions of the lens to determine the image with the best clarity. To determine the image with the best clarity, the auto-focus function begins at the same starting point each time it starts the process of capturing images.
In an image capturing device, an accelerometer typically is used to detect the motion of the device to compensate for a user's inability to hold a camera perfectly still. For motion compensation, an accelerometer only needs to detect motion in the forward-to-back directions and the side-to-side directions. A three-dimensional accelerometer may also detect orientation with respect to gravity but it would be more costly than a two-dimensional accelerometer as described above.